Knight
Introduction The knight is a hero that excels at tanking for prolongued periods of time, while offering support by breaking antimagic-shields, and reducing damage received by allies with mana seal (T). That aside, the knight has moderate burst damage with her QEEF and QEE combos, and her overall dps is decent when outside of her tank mode. "tank mode", is a toggleable skill that foregoes mp regeneration, and dps , for hp regeneration and damage redutction. This means that for the knight to show her superior tanking capacity, she has to give up some dps, which is generally a beneficial trade while in team-fights against big bosses. Overall, knights have acceptable soloing capacity, but they are better in teams. Stats: Put all stats into strength, this gives hp and damage, and the cons of having no base agi and no base int are offset by leveling, gear, and using skills correctly. Skill images . ( updated as of S4 0.09e ) Skill descriptions : ''' Mana Focus (D) It is a toggleable passive, with a tanking "active" mode, and a mp regeneration "passive" mode . In passive mode you will regenerate 8% mana/second. In active mode you regenerate 0 mana, and heal 4% max mana ask hp / second . To be clear, if you were gaining 1000 mana/sec in passive mode, you will recover 500 hp/sec in active mode. You will also gain 10% damage resistance and gain 30% max hp from the instant you activated it, meaning you will gain more hp if you do it while buffed, and if you maintain the active after the buffs disappear, you wont lose the difference. Grand Slash (Q) Does damage in front of your hero. After it's used, all auto-attacks for the next 4 seconds will perform a 50% power version of this skill. Since your base attack speed is 0.8 hits per second at ~ 2000 agi you will hit around 2.8 hits per second ( check the graph ) , which is achievable pretty easy with decent equipment. Also, after the backswing animation of the spell, you have over 3 seconds to hit, so you should be able to hit an enemy around 10 times with the Q buff before it expires, which means power ~ 1 + 0.5*10 = main spell + 10 buffed hits. This skill gives fairly good sustained dps over long periods of time, but is unimpressive at burst damage. Also, you will only find it powerful once you hit around 200% attackspeed bonus. below is some example calculation of damage dealt with normal stats. Overall, damage is fairly higher than R damage, if you autoattack 4 seconds 400% attack damage includes weapon damage, but does not include damage boosts like the one from archangel halo * consumed mp = 40% mp * dmg main hit= 40%*400%*mp + 400%AD * dmg main hit = 1.6 ( 5*str + 10* int + base mp ) + 4* ( 2*str + item dmg bonuses) * Base mp at lvl 420 = 6310 * dmg Qtotal ~ 6 * ( 16*str + 16*int + 10096 + 4 * item dmg bonuses ) * Assuming weapon dmg ~ 25.000 ( corruptor, winter tear, aglaia , scythe etc ) * dmg Qtotal = 96*str + 96*int + 60.000 + 600.000 ( before magic damage reduction ) Blitz (W) It makes the knight dash toward a point , dealing damage to what it his. This will break anti-magic shield if range is 400 or higher when you hit an enemy. It is important to know the mode of Mana Focus effects a lot about how this skill works. If it is in passive mode, a short ranged dash will push and move targets (great for moving mc out of his circle) and a long ranged dash will stop at the first target you hit, performing a small "break" aoe. However if D is in active mode you will not stop in a long ranged dash or push in a short ranged dash. Active mode generally allows for easier breaks and will also apply a buff to allies that redirects some damage from them to you, as long as they don't run too far away, as well as providing a decent heal over time of 5% of your life per tick. You will use this skill to avoid aoes, break anti-magic shield, and, if you time it right, save people from aoes. . Also, note that damage is much higher at long range This skill can be used for dps, as its long range strike can reach high numbers with 6 T stacks. However, this is not easy while solo, as bosses follow you, and must be done with care while in a team, lest you lose aggro if you are the tank Instincts (E) Instincts passive gives you a 20% chance to reduce any incoming damage by 50%. You will also always get this protection while casting your skills. If you lear to time this you can tank aoe spells easier Assault (E) Quickly teleport around your target in a star pattern and attack 6 times dealing pure damage. Any procs that can happen on your normal attacks can occur on these. This includes the 50% strikes from Mana Slash, and any weapon procs. The endpoint where you regain control of yourself is random, but always in melee range of the target, so be sure to watch were you are. This will also reset Mana Focus to Passive mode, so keep that in mind. Mana Blaster ® Mana Blaster allows knight to generate Mana Orbs. Each Mana Orb grants 10% magic resistance and can be fired to do some damage and slow any enemies hit. When the Knight has less than three orbs, she can spend 10% of her maximum mana to create one with a 1 second cooldown. Additionally if Mana Focus is on it's active mode each orb will stun for a second. Mana Field (T) This is plants down a field that gives allies protection that scales based on your damage reduction and give improved mana regeneration to you. If Mana Focus is on passive mode, you'll regenerate an additional 10% mana/sec, and on Active mode it will restore that much hp/second. Healing done through the field will not be reduced by 50% like healing from knight's base skill, mana focus. This definitely makes it easier to maintain mana throughout a fight, and since it doesn't cost anything to put down, can be used as you or your team needs it. It should go without saying, but this is the easiest way to enure you get full channeling for your ultimate. Mana Runes (T) Passive Also known as Knights stacks. Every time you hit an enemy with a spell they gain a stack. By using the same spell against a target they can gain up to 6 stacks. Q, and the subsequent half power hits from auto attacking and Q-->Intstincts-->Assault count as the same spell for the purpose of stacks. When a different spell is used on the enemy with stacks, the stacks will be consumed, applying a separate multiplier, increasing the total damage of the skill by 15% per stack, or a maximum of 90%. It is important to note that E cannot consume stacks. Additionally when stacks are consumed you will restore 4% of your maximum mana per stack if consumed from a boss unit, or 2% if it's on a normal unit. Excalibur (F) Fires a large and long beam of light after charging ( or interrupting the charge ) . allies hit by the spell will become invulnerable, only dying to instant kills. Additionally any debuffs will be removed from them. It's base damage is 375x strength, which is low, can be be buffed with charging and stacks up to1425x strength. Excalibur can be channeled for up to 4 seconds. E While the skill itself has no hard mana cost, it does require having 40% to cast. Any action given to your character or anything which would otherwise interrupt, such as a stun, will stop the channeling and cause the skill to fire, Combos The Good thing is Knight's cooldowns are super short, making her very skills and ability to fight very flexible. The bad thing is you have to be careful since you'll run out of mana very quickly with a bad rotation, and running out of mana really limits what you can do. . The main idea of doing damage is going to be setting up stacks, consuming them, and then doing it again and again and again. This helps keep your mana up to continue casting and with d on passive mode you should be almost able to stack and consume indefinitely. It's not hard in theory to learn your rotation, but in practice it can be pretty frantic. You're skill rotation should look something like "stack -> consume -> stack -> consume". Which skill you stack with will vary depending on the situation, but you'll generally stick to the following three methods. '''Stack combos: Q + Auto attack -> Q + Auto Attack (if needed) Q -> E -> E R -> r -> r -> r -> R After stacking you'll want to use a different skill, where you have a few options. W is your all purpose, general use damage skill. R is good if you've stacked several targets and need to refill your mana pool or if it's dangerous to get into melee range. Since Q is your main source of stacks you wont get to consume stacks with it often, but it's great if you stacked with r or can't get far enough away for a long ranged w, of course this means you will have to stack with R, but all things considered that isn't too bad. And of course, the all important stacked Ultimate. I will note that it's difficult to get a good long range W without teammates to hold the boss, so don't get too used to dpsing on the dummies and try to be flexible, there is not a single "correct" skill order, do what you can, when you can, without killing your team. I've found that using q and r with e when it's not on cooldown does the most damage, but it can really suffer when playing online and even then it isn't that much stronger. Once more I'd like to remind you that you must consume with a different skill than you stacked with. End-game items Now that Knight has some damage I've included more items. In general items that appear more to the left, are better. These lists mix both damage items and defensive items, switch them as needed for the task at hand. Weapons * Winter's Heart ** Oceanus, the sword of light ** Griseous the Sword of Protection ** Sword of Love and Hate Levante ** Ruinbringer ** Death Scythe *** Blazing Soul **** Aglaia, the Spear of Heavenly Flows **** Anger **** Asmodeus The Archdevil's Greatsword **** Claws of Destruction **** Spiritus, the Sword of Elements ***** Winters Tear Weapons are a bit tricky with Knight, as most of the time it doesn't make a huge difference which you have. If you are alone Death Scythe and Aglaia will do the most damage, unless you can activate anger. And on many of the Later bosses anger's debuff will not help too much. Griseous will allow you to tank more, apply some slowing, and heal your team a bit, though it is hard to get. I wouldn't waste time on more than one of Anger and Aglaia, just because of how little it will help and the resources needed. Otherwise just take what you can get. Asmo is still pretty good, Tear can be nice for slowing (and it has an upgrade in the works) and claws can be useful if they would be wasted otherwise. So I'm not going to edit my descriptions for all the new weapon upgrades. For the most part you can assume the weapon upgrades are going to be in roughly the same order only get one (if any). But the new top slot has to go to Winter's Heart. While it's damage is lower than Death Scythe's as a knight this shouldn't bother you too much. What you should care about is it's specialty. While mana barrier is up you will be immune to instant deaths. Helm * Will of Protector * Halo of Judgement * Crown of Composure ** Archangel's Halo/Helm of Battle ** Scale Protector ** Crown of Wrath ** Crown of Fervor The three top helms here each have a roll. Will of Protector is great for, well, protecting and helping your team survive. Halo of Judgement adds some extra damage and the ams should be able to help keep your allies alive when combined with an active Mana Focus Blitz. That said ams cooldowns are shared, and Creation can do the same thing without the extra steps. Crown of Composure just adds more damage with it's impressive statline. In general the downgraded items fulfill the same rolls as the upgrades do, to a lesser extent. Ring * Ispion, the Runed Ring * Seal of the Veiled ** Oath of Courage ** Purefrost Gauntlets ** Latea, The ring of Chaos *** True Guardian Ring *** Bone Necklace *** Demonis, the Archdevil's Ring *** Potion of Corruption **** Lifestone ☀Ring's are a fairly straightforward concept, I've listed some that are good for protection and some for damage. I tried to keep the damage ones on the bottom part of the list for each tier. Ispion is super nice as it heals through heal reduction, and provides nice aura's to help keep allies alive, as well as lots of strength and damage reduction. It also vastly improves the size (+50% radius) and duration (+33%) of Knight's field. Seal of the veiled is the strongest ring on offense. Latea is great in general and isn't that expensive to make, that said most of the time Oath or even purefrost can make more of a difference in keeping your team alive. Armor * Creation * Hellspike Armor ** Earthen Plates ** Reactive Armor ** Requiem, the Armor of Lamentation ** True Bloodstone Plates *** Flameshard Armor ☀Armor is fairly straightforward, Creation gives a lot of healing and utility to a team. Hellspike can do a lot of damage, especialy in long fights. Reactive and Lamentation can be good for damage, but Creation also helps keep your mana pool up, which can help if you fail to apply and consume stacks constantly. Additionally, if i were to restart Knight currently, the first armor I would go for would be the True Bloodstone Plates. I would say it's probably better than Flameshard, and you can get it earlier based on it's recipe. Frostshard armor is quite good, but seems excessive to me. Creation does more in a group, and hellspike's damage is hard to ignore for smaller teams. Additionally as Frozen Debris is fairly hard to come by, and Knight's main weapon needs it, I can't recommend making it. Wings * Soul Eater * Slayers Wings * Wings of Fury ** Shroud of Perseverance ** Grim Heart ** Phoenix Wings ** Guardian of the Skies ** Pure Crystal Wings ** Embrace of Nature *** Cape of the Count *** Corrupt Crystal Wings First off Knight casts pretty constantly, so things like slayers wings and wings of fury do good damage. Slayers is the best for raw dps. That said Soul Eater is more practical as it allows you to regenerate mana faster, while still being very strong. And in a more defensive build there's room for the Shroud of Perseverance or Grim heart. With the update there's actually a lot of strong wings for Knight, most of the late game wing options are about as strong as each other in terms of damage (wings of fury is below the others and shroud is much weaker for damage). Even the Cloak of Fallen Shadows is pretty good if you make Halo of Judgement (but only if you make it). Frost Fairy Wings wont do as well as others and needing Soul of the Dead's resurrection can be avoided 95% of the time just by playing better. Outside of those options everything else comes out fairly even in terms of damage, so it comes down to which secondary effects you prefer. For me that is the healing and regeneration of Soul Eater. Guide credits by: '''CerealTriumph , '''who made the original, as seen in the link below ☀http://www.twrpg.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=21[[Category:Classes]]